Spiritual Literacy and Tacit Knowledge

This article represents a critique of the 'spiritual literacy' approach to spiritual education developed by Andrew Wright (e.g. 2000a), with particular reference to the inclusion of Michael Polanyi's theory of 'tacit knowledge'. Wright's assessment of the current state of religious education is summarised and his proposed method is outlined. Polanyi's ideas are then described and assessed for their compatibility with the 'spiritual literacy' approach.     

The value of RCT evidence depends on the quality of statistical analysis

The authors examined statistical practices in 193 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychological therapies published in prominent psychology and psychiatry journals during 1999-2003. Statistical significance tests were used in 99% of RCTs, 84% discussed clinical significance, but only 46% considered-even minimally-statistical power, 31% interpreted effect size and only 2% interpreted confidence intervals. In a second study, 42 respondents to an email survey of the authors of RCTs analyzed in the first study indicated they consider it very important to know the magnitude and clinical importance of the effect, in addition to whether a treatment effect exists. The present authors conclude that published RCTs focus on statistical significance tests ("Is there an effect or difference?"), and neglect other important questions: "How large is the effect?" and "Is the effect clinically important?" They advocate improved statistical reporting of RCTs especially by reporting and interpreting clinical significance, effect sizes and confidence intervals.     

Representations of God uncovered in a spirituality group of borderline inpatients

We present aspects of a psychoanalytically-oriented, exploratory spirituality group for nine female psychiatric inpatients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Through drawings and group process, the patients uncovered and elaborated on their representations of God. Two patterns of representations were identified: (1) representations of a punitive, judgmental, rigid God that seemed directly to reflect and correspond with parental representations and (2) representations of a depersonified, inanimate, abstract God entailing aspects of idealization that seemed to compensate for parental representations. Interestingly, the second pattern was associated with comorbid narcissistic features in the patients. Those patients who presented punitive God representations were able to begin the process of re-creating these representations toward more benign or benevolent images in the context of this group, while those participants who presented depersonified God representations seemed unable to do so.     

Rehearsal in immediate serial recall

We report for the first time overt rehearsal data in immediate serial recall (ISR) undertaken at three presentation rates (1, 2.5, and 5 sec/word). Two groups of participants saw lists of six words for ISR and were required either to engage in overt rehearsal or to remain silent after reading aloud the word list during its presentation. Typical ISR serial position effects were obtained for both groups, and recall increased with slower rates. When participants rehearsed, they tended to do so in a cumulative forward order up to Serial Position 4, after which the amount of rehearsal decreased substantially. There were similarities between rehearsal and recall data: Both broke down toward the end of longer sequences, and there were strong positive correlations between the maximum sequence of participants' rehearsals and their ISR performance. We interpret these data as suggesting that similar mechanisms underpin both rehearsal and recall in ISR.     

Brand switching and consumer identification with brands in the smartphones industry

Brand loyalty literature has mainly focused on how brands perform under normal market conditions. As the business environment grows more complex, globalised, and innovative, market disruptions become more prevalent. Taking a cognition‐based approach, this paper proposes that customers identify with brands to satisfy self‐definitional needs. A social constructivist perspective, using an inductive and case study strategy, was used. Data generation was based on purposeful sampling, and participants were chosen on the basis of their “lived” experience with the use of smartphones. Four major themes were identified in the purchase of smartphones: identity, satisfaction, brand loyalty, and brand switching. Participants' views suggested that this provides them with a sense of purpose and meaning, defining who they are and why they behave in specified ways in society, which increases their self‐esteem. Brand switching occurs when customers are motivated to review available alternatives in the marketplace due to a change in competitive activities. Socially, switching occurs when a customer's belief in a brand is externally influenced within the social setting. When the boundary between the “in‐group” and the “out‐group” is impermeable and changing, group membership is not realistic; social mobility is not a viable strategy to cope with identity threats.     

Reform of statistical inference in psychology: The case of<Emphasis Type="Italic">Memory &; Cognition</Emphasis>

Geoffrey Loftus, Editor ofMemory & Cognition from 1994 to 1997, strongly encouraged presentation of figures with error bars and avoidance of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). The authors examined 696Memory & Cognition articles published before, during, and after the Loftus editorship. Use of figures with bars increased to 47% under Loftus’s editorship and then declined. Bars were rarely used for interpretation, and NHST remained almost universal. Analysis of 309 articles in other psychology journals confirmed that Loftus’s influence was most evident in the articles he accepted for publication, but was otherwise limited. An e-mail survey of authors of papers accepted by Loftus revealed some support for his policy, but allegiance to traditional practices as well. Reform of psychologists’ statistical practices would require more than editorial encouragement.     

Parenting Narcissus: What Are the Links Between Parenting and Narcissism?

Previous theorizing by clinical psychologists suggests that adolescent narcissism may be related to parenting practices (Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1977). Two studies investigated the relations between parenting dimensions (i.e., warmth, monitoring, and psychological control) and narcissism both with and without removing from narcissism variance associated with trait self-esteem. Two hundred and twenty-two college students (Study 1) and 212 high school students (Study 2) completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, a trait self-esteem scale, and standard measures of the three parenting dimensions. Parental warmth was associated positively and monitoring was associated negatively with both types of narcissism. Psychological control was positively associated with narcissism scores from which trait self-esteem variance had been removed. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed, limitations are addressed, and future research directions are suggested.     

The MAVRIC-C and MAVRIC-P: a preliminary reliability and validity study

We administered the Measure of Aggression, Violence, and Rage in Children (MAVRIC; Bass, Geenens, & Popper, 1993a, 1993b), a questionnaire assessing the severity of reactive, impulsive aggression, to 28 prepubertal psychiatrically hospitalized children and 54 prepubertal lowrisk nonpatients and their mothers. Cross-informant reliability was supported between the MAVRIC-Child Version (MAVRIC-C; Bass et al., 1993a) and MAVRIC-Parent Version (MAVRIC-P; Bass et al., 1993b), r = .62, p < .001. Convergent validity was supported with the Aggressive Behavior factor of the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991a) for the MAVRIC-C, r = .62, p < .001, and MAVRIC-P, r = .74, p < .001. Both versions were also associated with disruptive behavior disorders, inpatient status, and assaultive behavior. We discuss the differences in the perception of aggression as a function of informant.     

What is being masked in object substitution masking?

Object substitution masking (OSM) is said to occur when a perceptual object is hypothesized that is mismatched by subsequent sensory evidence, leading to a new hypothesized object being substituted for the first. For example, when a brief target is accompanied by a longer lasting display of nonoverlapping mask elements, reporting of target features may be impaired. J. T. Enns and V. Di Lollo (2000) considered it an outstanding question whether OSM masks some or all aspects of a target. The authors report three experiments demonstrating that OSM can selectively affect target features. Participants may be able to detect a target while being unable to report other aspects of it or to report the color but not the orientation of a target (or vice versa). We discuss these findings in relation to two other visual phenomena.     

Response inhibition can affect reaction time to abrupt-onset visual displays

Reaction time (RT) to abrupt-onset stimuli has been widely used for more than a century to measure the duration of perceptuo-cognitive and motor processes [Donders, 1868/1969 Attention and Performance II (1969 Acta Psychologica 30 412-431)]. A complicating factor with the RT method is that of response withholding, or response inhibition (RI). The occurrence of RI (under this or other names) has been widely discussed in relation to studies of motor processes but has been largely ignored in relation to studies of perceptuo-cognitive processes. We demonstrate that RI can be a confounding factor when RT to abrupt-onset displays is used to study perceptual and cognitive processes. In experiment 1, new-object targets were more accurately detected than old-object targets in an unspeeded task, but were responded to more slowly in an RT task. Consistent with an interpretation in terms of RI, this pattern of results was dependent on the difficulty of target detection. The data of three further experiments also support predictions from the RI interpretation. It is suggested that RI may be an under-acknowledged factor in RT studies of perceptual and cognitive processes with abrupt-onset displays.